Archive for the 'Virus Removal Tactics' Category

Running your own repair business means finding the best tools to help your customers. Unlike repairing computers for friends and family, you are now doing this for profit, which means that licensing agreement is a lot more important. Many free tools are only for personal use- commercial use requires expensive licensing.

A Wired.com article tells the story of perhaps the most complicated computer virus – Stuxnet – and it’s discovery and ongoing investigation. Definitely worth a read for techs seriously interested in security. You might think you’ve come across some difficult computer viruses until you read this.

BienTek, a Southeast Michigan computer services and virus removal business, reports seeing an abundance of fake hard drive error viruses lately. These viruses typically hide documents and desktop files. Messages warn of “IDE or SATA” failures and suggest paying to get a version of their “repair utility” to fix the issue. These fake programs usually […]

Earlier, in a post comparing MS Security Essentials, AVG and Avast, I recommended taking a look at MS Security Essentials as your best free antivirus. Since then, I’ve seen a lot of customers get re-infected with this antivirus solution installed. Meanwhile, Avast has made their registration process a lot easier. I now recommend Avast. Although […]

After a virus removal, your computer may BSOD on the next boot due to registry changes that the virus made. Windows is looking at a corrupt registry, and it may point to a virus-infected file that was removed. At this point, restoring to the earliest registry backup on the system can be a quick fix. […]

Is it time to begin recommending Microsoft Security Essentials over AVG and Avast? AVG is easy to use, but the free version is somewhat crippled (no rootkit detection). Avast includes rootkit detection, but does not seem to scan the registry and has a user-unfriendly UI. MS Security Essentials won’t nag users to upgrade, has minimal […]

Today I ran into a new fake antivirus scanner, “Safe PC Online Scan“. It’s just like the other fake online alerts but now with 50% more trickery and deception. On visiting, I’m redirected to an alert dialog. Following screenshots 1 through 4, (click them to see the full-sized images), watch how it works. Unlike other […]

In addition to the recommended virus removal tools, bring the following to on-site jobs: a Linux Live CD an external hard drive your laptop Your Live CD and external hard drive can help you to recover files from crashed computers on site.

Practice virus and spyware removal on your own systems first! Learn to become a malware removal expert in your own lab environment, and get the confidence and skill to take on the latest threats. Here’s what you’ll need […]